News

Jun 17, 2010

Kentucky is challenging roadside signs that call attention to Jesus.

Jimmy Harston, who lives near Scottsville, has put up signs along highways calling attention to Jesus in several states -- but he has run into roadblocks only in his home state of Kentucky. Harston tells OneNewsNow he felt a call from heaven to put up the signs. As he points out, it was not his idea.

"Make no mistake about it, I'd rather have been out doing something else," says Harston, "but the Lord's been so good to me I had to do what he put upon my heart. Anyone that's been led by the Lord knows exactly what I'm talking about."

Harston had the signs up for years under a previous Kentucky administration, but the new one filed a lawsuit over unconfirmed reports that the signs' presence might endanger federal road dollars for the Bluegrass State. But the signs are on private land (with the owners' permission) and are non-profit.

"I've got signs in Ohio and Indiana, Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee. They've not said anything," he shares. "It's only this area right here for some reason."

Harston believes he has free-speech guarantees as well as religious freedom and wants the signs to stay up. A bill was passed in the Kentucky House to protect the signs, but it died in the Senate after a false rumor that the state would lose federal highway money if the signs stayed up.